


Green Room

by VtheHappyLurker



Series: A Point of Divergence [1]
Category: Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types, Rockman | Mega Man Classic
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Bad Parenting, Bitterness, Dr. Light Tries, Father-Son Relationship, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sexism, Male Friendship, Parenthood, Red Scare, Robot/Human Relationships, Robots, Science Fiction, Science Husbands, Sex Talk, The Other Science Husbands!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 00:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3589323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VtheHappyLurker/pseuds/VtheHappyLurker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the debut of their new creation, Albert finds himself dwelling upon his place in the shadow of the Great Dr. Light and their relationship to their first son. (Spotlight)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green Room

**Author's Note:**

> [DISCLAIMER: I do not own the official characters nor the games that they are from. I also don’t own any other things based off Mega Man and I’m not making any money off of this. I have made my best attempt to keep with the canon has been made, but divergences may occur for the sake of the story. Please keep in mind that I’m working off what I can remember about the games and whatever I can find online, and there may also be fanon and my personal head-canons mixed in as well. In other words, repeat to yourself it’s just a fan fiction and just relax…]

**‘Green Room’**

_July 15, 1988_  
ORNL Conference Center  
Oak Ridge, Tennessee

            Albert thought the press conference was going well, despite how awkwardly Tom stumbled through the speech he had so thoughtfully wrote for him. The audience was so enthralled that he didn’t even mind it when Tom went complete off script when he got started talking about Blues. The poor boy looked pleasantly embarrassed as Tom began telling them what a wonderful son he was. Tom’s voice was shaking with a father’s pride as he lovingly described the boy’s— _the project’s_ development from its conception nearly twelve years earlier and the infancy of artificial general intelligences right up to the day they first brought their boy online. His words were so moving as he spoke about the boy progress over the past three years that it almost made Albert forget about how the grant committees kept passing his ideas over without even a glance until he started forging Tom’s name on the request forms.

He found himself so moved that Albert nearly forgot the way those tiny-minded fools had made damn sure that the Good Doctor alone would be remembered by the world at large, throwing the rest of the research team under the proverbial bus. Albert could hardly believe easy it was for them all to ignore Lalinde, Astil, and even that upstart Mikeal despite the fact they’d all been vital for Blues’ creation. But then again, they were respectively: a woman, a Brazilian ex-pat and worst of all, a Commie! The American media and the army just couldn’t grasp the idea that such a team had made their precious robot. But Tom was so infectiously sincere about his love for their creation that Albert was ready to overlook the way even he had been ignored despite being the other half of the brains behind both the conception and creation of the prototype. Can’t let the Jewish faggot from Manchester share the glory after all. Despite all of it, Albert almost forgave Tom for just carelessly letting it happen…almost.

            Finally, Tom’s beautiful little monologue came to an end and he reluctantly opened up the floor to questions at the prompting of the foundation’s spokesman. Albert watched in amusement as his colleague stammered out his answers, squirming at being made the center of attention. There was a brief moment when he considered jumping in to rescue the poor bumbling fool, but decided against it. The American public wanted their precious myth of the lone genius so if Tom was going have to learn how handle the spotlight himself instead of letting his ‘assistant’ to do the dirty work. It was even funnier watching Blues butt in to help him out. Besides, Tom’s inability to make it through a simple little press conference without panicking might actually give Albert his chance to get the respect and recognition he so rightly deserved…or at least get them to acknowledge his contributions outside of the few academic papers he’d been able to get published. So he sat back to enjoy the show.

            And then came the one question that Albert had been dreading…

            “Eh, Dr. Light?” rasped a ferret-like little man in the back. “You said that this… uh, this machine is going to be as close to a real human being as technologically possible, right?”

            “Oh yes!” Tom smiled, his face still aglow in paternal joy in spite of his nervousness. He cheerfully patted Blues on the back. “We’ve created Blues…sorry, the Protoman to be able to perform nearly all the functions of a naturally born human. There are still some cognitive limitations of course, but when we’re finished with testing he should be able to pass all the major tests, including both the Classic and Revised Turing Standards.”

            “Yeah, but is he…eh, functional?” A faint murmur of embarrassed coughing and a few giggles echoed through the conference hall.

            Albert looked over at their boy and noticed Blues was glaring at the Ferret. He reached out, grabbing hold of the boy’s arm to keep him from going after the bastard.

            “Well, technically yes… As I just said, we’re still testing out Blues’ systems and haven’t finished putting him through his paces yet. We’ve designed him to be far more physically capable than the average human, so we’re still discovering just what his limits are.”

            Albert cringed as the snickering started in earnest. He watched Lalinde bury her face in her hands while Mikeal just stared straight ahead like a rabbit caught in headlights. He even saw that Blues was giving his farther a mortified look. Tom could not be so naïve to think that couldn’t be taken wildly out of context… Could he?

            “You all must be having a real.. uh, fun time teaching him, huh doc?”

            “Of course! Blues is a very fast learner. In fact just the other day, he was talking to an intern about various kinds of user interfaces available for biomechanical devices.”

            Now the quiet little chuckles morphed into outright laughter. Albert followed Lalinde’s lead and buried his face in his hands as well, utterly amazed to learn that Tom was really that oblivious. Then again, in the twenty odd years they’d worked together, Albert should have known he never had been good at taking a hint…

            “That’s fascinating, doc…” rasped Ferret as the laughter died down. “But I noticed you...uh, keep calling the robot a ‘he’. Any reason for that?”

            “Well, to be perfectly honest, the basic body structure was designed to be gender neutral but a decision was made to refer to Blues as male since he…erm…” Tom looked sheepishly down at the podium. He turned to Blues for help, but the robot only looked straight ahead in stone-faced silence. In a soft tone, Tom said, “Well, he asked us to call him by male pronouns. My colleague Albert was the first to point out how…well, upsetting it was to Blues to be called an ‘it’ or referred to in the singular ‘they’. Blues said it was ‘dehumanizing’ to be treated like just another machine.”

There was a fresh laughter at that comment, that politely dismissive noise that Albert had become so painfully familiar with over the course of his professional life. Albert snuck a glance over at their creation, a bit unnerved by how quiet Blues was suddenly being. Then he chanced a glance over at his friend. Was it just his imagination, or did Tom actually seem pissed off at the crowd’s reaction.

 “But to be completely honest,” Tom continued icily. “I believe he chose the male gender for strictly aesthetic reasons. As I stated earlier, Blues was intended to be a prototype for use by peace keeping forces and police work, traditionally male dominated professions. There is also the unfortunate view that women and femininity are inherently inferior, so Blues’ decision may have been influenced by the sexist culture surrounding him. He probably felt it would be more convenient for him to be treated as male but Blues would be just as effective in his duties even if he was gendered female.”

            “But that still doesn’t answer my question, doc: Is he…ah, functional?”

            “Other than a few little bugs, yes. Blues is capable of autonomous mobility, possesses full articulation and has a near-human range of cognitive abilities.”

            Ferret’s grin turned nasty. “That’s all good, doc, but what I really want to know is does this robot have any…ah, equipment?”

            Tom looked at him oddly as he thought over the question. “I’m really not at liberty to say much about the military side of things, but I will say that Blues is capable of interfacing with all current standardized tool-kit models.”

            Again, Ferret had to wait for the chuckles to subside before he could speak. “I think you…eh, misunderstood me, doc. See, what we all want to know is can we…uh, well to be blunt: can we fuck it?”

            The whole room shuddered with laughter while Tom stood at the podium in wide-eye shock. Lalinde was immediately on her feet, holding Blues back from jumping the Ferret. Before he could regain his composure enough to be righteously indignant, Albert leapt to the rescue and grabbed the microphone away from him.

            “Of course our boy’s full functional in that respect! It’s just that we really can’t test those features out because, aside from the ethical problems, Blues still doesn’t quite know his own strength. The boy can deadlift an Abrams tank so who knows what might happen if he got too…excited. We wouldn’t want any interns getting their pelvis’ pulverized, now would we?”

            “Actually, doctor, I don’t think that’s any of their fucking busi—” Before Blues could say more, Lalinde dragged him off-stage.  

Albert plastered one his most charming smile as he gently nudged Tom aside and took the podium amid a fresh wave of laughter. “On that note, I’m afraid we’ve got to end things for today. The good doctor’s got to go back to work now. Thomas is a busy man after all! Oh, and please enjoy the lovely free meal, compliments of your tax dollars. Vote early and vote often!”

            Amid the murmur of voices and flashing cameras, Albert managed to drag Tom out of the conference room and left Lalinde babysitting Blues. He was barely able to get the door to the green room shut before Tom finally went off.

            “I cannot believe the nerve of that man!” he barked. “What kind of filthy mind would even think of asking about that sort of thing?!”

            Albert sighed and rolled his eyes. “The kind of mind that writes for your average ‘men’s’ magazine. I think he’s from Hustler. Don’t worry, he’s a nobody,  Tom. Just calm down, okay?”

            “Calm down? Damn it, Albert! Do you have any idea how much this will damage our project’s credibility? What is the grant board going to say when they hear about this? And you…you just had to go and egg them on by implying that we would actually install that kind of… _equipment_ in Blues.”

            “I wasn’t implying anything,” Albert scoffed, pulling a flask out of his pocket. He managed to find a couple of cups and poured them each a drink. “All I did was state a simple fact, Tom. This whole press conference was meant to show off all of  the prototype’s features. Not my fault if you decided to go and treat him like our surrogate son.”

            “But gender isn’t a feature! The only Blues wanted to be a ‘he’ in the first place is because he mainly interacts with men. It’s just a fluke! Hell, Blues doesn’t even have the parts for it!” snapped Tom, ignoring the last comment as he reluctantly took the cup Albert offered him. “And let me say right now that making them capable of that kind of performing sexually is never going to happen, either!”

            “Jesus… Do you really expect me to believe that you didn’t at least consider that there are going to be people out there who would be very interested in having sex with a robot? Think about it, Tom. We both know that if a thing exists, there’s going to be somebody who’ll at least try to figure out a way put their dick in it or stick it up were the sun don’t shine. We might as well take advantage of that fact right now and get the credit for it. Who knows? Play our cards right, and we might even get a few new sponsors out this. I mean, Hustler and Playboy’s going to want in on this.”

            Tom stared at him, mouth agape. “Dear G_d… You cannot be serious about this!”

            “Don’t get your panties in a twist. You and I both know that once we release the design to the general public, there’s going to be people making after-market modifications. Up to and including giving them genitalia. So I figure why not go ahead and create an official version ourselves? I mean, we are trying to make these robots as close to humans as technologically possible. Why not give them the ability to have sex?” He paused for a drink, puffing out his chest a bit with pride. “It was actually a very interesting little project. The basic mechanics weren’t too difficult to figure out, except for a few issues with getting the right amount of lubrication… Not to mention creating a method to emulate the physical and psychological aspects of an orgasm in a non-organic being. Oh, by the way, I hope you don’t mind Tom but I went ahead and patented the design under my name. I know how much your precious image as the paragon of scientific virtue means to you…”

            “Patented?” Tom’s lip curled in disgust. “Oh G_d… Albert, please don’t tell me you actually built something like that? It’s just…it’s just wrong.”

            “Oh, don’t you dare go acting all high and mighty with me, Thomas Light!” Albert snarled as he downed the rest of his drink in one gulp.  “I wasn’t the one who went and programmed Blues to be able to get drunk. And then you just had to go the extra mile by adding in hangovers too!” He paused, then added in a quieter tone. “Tom, he is as much my creation as yours.”

            “Then you should understand why I will not stand for the creation of something so…so…horrible!” He put his own drink aside, untouched. “I won’t allow them to turn my robots into a bunch of over glorified sex toys! I understand why you did it, Albert, but you can’t install such a thing in **_our_** boy!” Tom took a deep breath to calm down before continuing. “But maybe you were right to patent that design. As much as I hate the idea of patent squatting, this might allow use to legally prevent anyone else from creating other such modifications like that. Albert, I don’t know how far you went with this side project but I’m asking you to destroy any prototypes or mock-ups you’ve built. Please? Will you do that for me?”

            “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Tom…” Albert turned away slightly, pouring himself another drink and braced himself for the inevitable outburst. “See, I already installed a working model in the boy. And before you go off on another puritanical rant, let me just say that he seems to be very happy about the whole thing. Said it made him feel more ‘normal’. Like he was actually more of  a ‘person’ now.”

            “So you think that justifies going behind my back and making changes to my son without my consent?” rasped the good doctor, the hurt naked on his face.

            “I had the boy’s consent,” he growled, foregoing the cup and just drinking straight from the flask now. “And let me repeat that I’m as much his father as you are! What gives you the right to decide whether I can or cannot  make my own changes to my own creation? You think I would _force_ him to make that choice? It’s his body! Why shouldn’t he be allowed to make up his own mind about what he wants done to it? I mean, I didn’t even think of actually making the damn thing until the boy came up and asked me to.”

            Tom blinked in surprise. “Blues did what?”

            “He asked me to ‘fix’ that little shortcoming of his. Seems he got his hands on a copy of _Grey’s Anatomy_ and noticed he was missing a few important parts…”

            “But how? I know he…he asked to be considered a male, but to actually want to make such a drastic changes to himself? And what’s all this nonsense about wanting to be feel ‘normal’? We’ve all done our best to treat him just like any other person. Blues shouldn’t be able to feel like he’s abnormal. He’s just not programmed to think that way!”

            “I hate to break it to you Tom, but our boy’s more than just his programming now…”

            “But it doesn’t make any sense, Albert,” muttered the good doctor. His tone was both puzzled and strangely hurt. “I would have noticed if Blues was developing outside his parameters by now. None of the test results have shown anything to indicate he was capable of that level of self-awareness. Everything shows Blues is responding quite normally for what was expected in the new AGIs. I just…” Tom sighed and slumped down onto the ratty little couch. “I just don’t understand why he didn’t come talk to me about any of this first.”

            Albert choked back another drink and shook his head. “He _tried_ , Thomas. But every time the boy tries to talk to you about how awkward he feels around other people or being frustrated with the way he still keeps on being treated like any other piece of machinery, you’d just write it off as malfunctions or a bug in his programming. You never listen to him.” He stared down at the flask in his hand, the added quietly, “You just never listen to anyone, Tom…”

            “That’s the thing, Albert: Blues **_is_** just a piece of machinery!” Tom stared down at his hands to avoid looking Albert in the eye. “A very intelligent machine, yes, but at the end of day he’s only a machine. His software is just too limited to make him a truly sentient being. He shouldn’t even be aware enough have these concerns.”

            Albert let slip a bitter smile. “If that’s how you really feel, Tom, then why do you even care if I turn him into an over glorified sex-toy? I mean, you’ve already made him a weapon. And all you had to do was change a few parts to have a different machine…”

            “I did what they asked of me to keep the project going,” Tom snapped, then he slumped miserably. “And whatever my personal feelings are, they don’t matter. I’m becoming too emotionally involved to give an honest assessment of Blues. You’re right, Albert. No matter how often I try to not to, I just can’t help but think of him as my own son.” His head jerked up, meeting Albert’s gaze in defiance. “You may think I’m a fool, but I’ve done my best to follow the law. I never tried to avoid submitting to routine testing by the Turing board and let my pride overrule any common sense. And I am willing to believe it when their findings show that it just shouldn’t be possible for him to be self-conscious enough to have self-esteem issues. It has to be some kind of programming flaw…”

            “Tom, you are such a jackass. That isn’t a programming flaw, it’s fucking puberty. Blues is physically and emotionally a teenage boy. And he’s _acting_ like any other teenager would. He lashes out, he pulls stupid stunts to impress his idiot friends... and gleefully keeps trying to shag anyone willing. Seriously, we ought to build him a girlfriend or get him a shop vac. Oh! By the way, those precious test results? They aren’t even valid because the boy cheated on the Turing tests.”

            “That’s isn’t possible! The Turing Registry has designed its examinations using both the Classic and the Revised tests to have the lowest possible number of prevent false positives. In fact, if you believe the published reports, the Turing people have a rating of less than a five percent inaccuracy caused by human error.”

            “Depends on how you define ‘human’, Tom…” His lips twisted into a bitter smile. “The Classic Turing tests are flawed on a fundamental level, because what the overseers are looking for in an artificial intelligence is based off a very narrow idea of what a ‘normal’ human response would be from a computer not an android. Classic Turing can be fooled by programming in things like typing errors, thereby making it possible for even a non-volitional intelligence to game the system. And that’s not even considering that the Classic doesn’t test for higher than human intelligence. In fact, that’s exactly Blues fooled that round of  testing! He gave them answers that were either too smart for a human or would come across as being obviously programmed behaviors.”

            “That doesn’t explain how he could have cheated on the Revised Turing. Addressing all the failings of Classic Turing was exactly why it was created in the first place. They even redesigned it for robots specifically. Not only that, but if Blues had been intentionally cheating, then it would have shown up in those tests.”

            Albert laughed darkly. “That’s the really amusing part! As much as they like to crow about accuracy and reliability, they still haven’t made a test that can truly measure what it means to be a human. How could they? We haven’t even figured that out for ourselves! Yet we think that we’re capable of judging the consciousness of another being? Who in god’s name gave us the right to make that decision?”

            “This again…” came the growl, then Tom let out a weary sigh. “I know you don’t like it, but the Turing Registry is currently the best we got in terms of an agency to regulate and control—”

            “Control what?” Albert snapped back. “The right to have free will? To be a person?”

            “Albert, please don’t start…”

            “You asked me why Blues didn’t come talk to you first? You want the truth? He was _frightened_ , Tom. Those overseers from Turing made one hell of an impression on him…” he hissed, angrily waving the now empty flask at his friend. “He was afraid if you found he still felt that way—hell, that he even was _capable_ of feeling at all!—that you would turn and hand him over to those bastards to be murdered!”

            “G_d dammit, Albert! Why do you always have to blow everything out of proportions? I’d never let such a thing happen to him. That’s not what Turing would do and you know it!”

            “They would have shut down the whole project!”

            “Until they finished investigations to proven whether or not our boy really was a strong volitional A.G.I., after which—”

            “After which they would have us kill him!”

            “No, Albert, no! That isn’t what we’d have to do.” Tom stood up and grasped his friend by the shoulders.  “We would just need to make a few changes, that’s all. Install some limitations, a few guidelines to keep our boy from progressing to fast. Like the Asimov codes.”

            “You mean cripple him.” Angrily, Albert jerked away. “You’d have us rape his mind and break his will as we snuff out his soul. Don’t you realize what we’ve done, Tom? We’ve actually done it! We’ve made a truly sentient artificial life form!”

            “Albert, I already  he’s just a machine. They’re not human, they don’t have real feelings…it’s all simply programming. We made them to obey us, to be our servants and our helpers. Machines aren’t alive. And machines don’t have souls.”

            “Then why the hell do you keep treating him as your **_son_**?”

            Tom just looked down at the floor as if he would find an answer just lying at his feet. When one failed to come crawling up to him, the good doctor decided to go on ignoring the elephant in the room and change the subject.

            “We ought to get back out there, Albert. Blues is out there, waiting for us along with everyone else in the ballroom. It be rude to not at least attend the dinner in our honor.”

            “You mean in **_your_** honor, Tom. I’m just your assistant, remember? Nobody’s going to care if I’m not around anymore. You and your precious **_machine_** are what they came to see. Besides, unlike some people, I have work to finish.” He turned his back on the good doctor and went to the door. “Good night…and good bye Dr. Light.”

            Despite Tom’s protests, he staggered out into the hallway, almost barreling into Blues who must’ve been listening at doors again. Albert gave him a sad little smile and ruffled his hair before he left the conference hall and got into a cab parked conveniently nearby. The driver was a surly looking and quiet, giving Albert time to think some more about his decision as they sped out of the city into the darkness of the countryside. He briefly wondered if he should just swallow his pride and go back. It wasn’t right to leave his boy alone with those vultures, after all. They hadn’t realized that there was anything missing yet. All he had to do was tell Tom what he had done and beg forgiveness from the good Dr. Light.

            The cab pulled behind an abandoned factory and the driver stiffly got out. Albert stepped out of the cab to watch the lumbering driver go around to the trunk and retrieve a new batch of equipment he’d smuggled out of the lab. It’d been frighteningly easy to purchase an old Auto-Helper from the scrapyard and even simpler to program it to be the perfect accomplice. It was almost as useful as Blues. His good, loyal son who was always ready to help out dear old dad. And also knew how to keep his mouth shut. As the Auto-Helper carried everything in, Albert’s thought’s turned again to Tom…

            The Good Doctor Light. The Golden Boy from small town Tennessee. Savior of Man and Father of a Bright New Day… The great shining Light, who’d always leave everyone else languishing forgotten in the darkness. The very idea of being forced back into his shadow made Albert gag. It was too late to turn back now. His plans were already too far along to be stopped now. Even if the Protoman project was to fold that very night, Albert still had copies of the blueprints and  his back-ups. And he knew his boy well enough to expect Blues to come running once those idiots in their blindness throw him away. It was only a matter of time before the whole world would remember the name of Doctor Albert Wily.


End file.
